A Wedding Card

Synthesis:
Black Ribbon
Warm White Deckle-edged card and envelope
Spellbinders Nestabilities Large Labels
Higgins Eternal Black Ink
Mitchell Roundhand Nib
Black Cardstock
Double-sided tape
Glue Dots

The Colours of the Rockies

On our way back from ABC 2010 in Red Deer, we spent several days in the Rockies.  They are so incredibly spectacular.
The mountains are made up of only a few colours (excluding the white of the snow, which isn't technically a colour).

The grey of the peaks.

The green of the alpine forests.

The  incredible turquoise of the rock flour filled streams and lakes.

The brilliant, audacious colours of the alpine flowers

and Rust; minerals contrasting the grey limestone of the mountains and very sad and shocking, the colour of the dead trees killed by the Mountain Pine Beetle.

We had such a wonderful few days and the weather was perfect.
I can hardly wait to go back! I'm dying to take a painting workshop here. And next time I'll have a better camera, although I didn't do too badly with my point & shoot!

ABC 2010: The view from the conference store!

ABC 2010 is now over (can you tell I wrote this weeks ago?). Wow! What a week! I planned for set-up to be a snap, but that was optimistic. Note to self: when you think you need 6 tables, ask for 12 and you’ll be close to correct.

Traveling over the Rockies was uneventful except for sitting in the van at Golden while we waited an hour for the roadwork to be finished. That’s what novels are for…. Or naps. The van was sitting pretty low on the trip out. Paper is so heavy!

Don’t always believe your GPS. Although I’ve taught classes in Red Deer several times before, I was always chauffeured back and forth to Red Deer College! Never underestimate the power of asking a human being for directions….

A huge thanks to Sandra B. for her enormous assistance in setting up. I think she is now quite comfortable with the more than 60 shades of W&N Watercolours that I carry as she filled the whole display!

I had my share of technical difficulties. I just don’t do this pack-up and move thing often enough to be proficient at it! But John Neal had difficulties, too. As with Island Magic, his books didn’t show up. At least he knew where they were this time! I don’t know how he survived as the Boston conference had finished only a week before and here he was in Red Deer. “His” Michael was off at the Iampeth conference which was running at the same time as ABC 2010! I have huge respect for John and what he does for the calligraphic community.

Thanks to those of you who remembered my friend Susan from Island Magic. I would have loved her to be at ABC 2010, but working 7am-10pm every day is the kind of job you can only ask a friend to do once in a lifetime! (although if I’d asked, I know she would have done it!) Susan’s Mom died 5 days before my Dad at the end of April.

Simply Accounting and I had ongoing battles at the start of this conference. I now know why I pay the big bucks for technical support! By the second day I could print invoices – if you need one and didn’t get a detailed one from the first day, just email me with the invoice number on your receipt and I will email it to you! Sorry for the inconvenience!

As you can see, I didn't take many photos.....

So what were the big items at ABC 2010? These are off the top of my head….

Kakishibu

The circles of Bombay Ink (now sold out)

Dr. Martin’s Bleedproof White

Higgins Eternal Ink

Pelikan Fount India Ink

Schmincke Tro-Col (I'll be getting more of this in stock soon!)

Parallel Pens

Ruling Pens – all of them! and suede pens

Automatic Pens

Rinky Dinks

Buddy Cups

Arches Text Wove

Arches Black Cover

G-tec pens

Walnut Ink

Each day the store sponsored a draw with about $70 worth of product included! Our winners were:

Bill L – Kelowna

Barry C – Calgary

Corrine A – Red Deer

Jo-Anne R – Red Deer (you should have seen the look on her face when I handed her the bag of goodies to be presented at the evening program. She asked who won and I showed her the name. Too cute!)

Barbara M – Calgary

Thanks so much to the organizing committee for inviting me – it was simply wonderful to see all the “old” faces and meet some wonderful new ones.

A big round of applause should go to Karen Jackson and Roxanne Fairbrother for being such an awesome team and handling everything that came their way.

I’d like to thank Sandra B again (she kept me sane those first few hours and came back in to help out on the first few days) as well as Cheryl D and Joanne R who read me product numbers to speed the line ups!

And yet another thanks to the pack up crew, who packed everything quickly and efficiently. I really appreciated the help so much! My brain was numb by that point.

I’d love to go back again, but this time can I take a class? Although I might have to stalk Mike Kecseg since I missed his class in Red Deer.….

See you all at ABC 2020!

When you wish upon a star

So I had this email a couple of months ago - an inquiry about my library cards. The email address was @disney.com. Really? Yes, indeed, it was from Disney Animation. For real. Why my library cards??? Well, they liked them.... So much so that they wanted 5,000. Well between me and the supplier we were jumping. The name Disney just has that effect on you. The supplier was not the manufacturer, so they I guess they had to go cut the trees...... Anyway, it all worked out. And I got paid today!

I was dying to know what they were going to do with the library cards - thinking they might appear in an upcoming production...
Alas. The cards are for their internal library. Burst my balloon! Who uses library cards any more???? Apparently Disney!

Now this is the same week I was emailed by L'oreal. They wanted 100 bottles of turquoise ink. Perhaps a new hair colour? I didn't have 100 bottles, so I never did find out what that was all about.

You just never know what is going to happen on the www.

Thanks for visiting!

Created byhand Challenge - Stars

Okay, okay, so this is a couple of weeks late! *sigh* It's for the Stars theme week! Did you know you can add your challenge artwork to the Challenge Group on Quietfire Creations?

Card Sythesis:
Even a Small Star
Spellbinders Stars
Spellbinders Labels 2
7 Gypsies Notting Hill Paper
Vintage Children 2 Collage Sheet


Thanks for dropping by!

Wedding Shower Card

I needed to create a wedding shower card this morning for a shower this afternoon. Sound familiar? Well, I fiddled and farted around - I didn't know if they had any "colours". So I ultimately came up with this. Not what I envisioned in the beginning, but I have to say: I just love embossing folders! Because this is pretty acceptable thanks to the formality of the blind embossing.
I promise I'll do better with the wedding card.
(and duh, he's RCMP, so going with red would probably have been a good guess....)

Card Synthesis:

Mitchell Roundhand Nibs
Higgins Eternal Ink
Pigma Pen
Natural Coloured Cardstock
Black Cardstock
Crafts Too Embossing folder - Swirl Frame
Spellbinders Wizard

Thanks for looking!
Suzanne

Dimensional Grunge - I can do that!

Today I had a few minutes to flip over to Tim Holtz's blog and found him doing Dimensional Grunge. My eyes lit up and I started to calculate the amount of time it would take me to make something similar.... and away I went.

I've really been wanting to use the little canvases that I stock. Kristy has done some adorable things with them. I no longer have any Grungeboard in stock, but I have my own stash as I'm sure you do - AND - I've been dying to try the new Tim Holtz Tissue Tape. A knock-off project is born!

The Grungeboard heart is held on with the Tissue Tape. I used the Ink Blending Tool with foam pads (love these things!) on Fired Brick to highlight the raised heart and Vintage Photo to tint the edges of the canvas. I stamped sacred from the Quietfire Words of Love set on an small piece of Tissue Tape and stuck it on the heart along with the keyhole and black brads and key ('cause I don't have the same stuff as Tim Holtz... yet). The charms are held on with Mini Glue Dots.

Let me tell you, it sure didn't take long to make this little sweetie!

Thanks for visiting!

Happy Canada Day!

I heard this song on the radio yesterday morning. Oh, my, it's been years! and then I found this cute little video on YouTube. Vocals by Roger Whittaker.

Happy Canada Day!

Life is a Pure Flame redux - Created byhand Challenge

Ever since I laid my eyes on this Tim Holtz Embossing Folder, I had to have it. It had to go with this rubber stamp!
I was a little worried about the theme for this week's challenge (which can be found on the blog and now on Quietfire Creations) then decided, what the heck, I'll use dark red!!
Here is my contribution!





Card Synthesis:
natural cardstock
burgundy cardstock
Life is a Pure Flame
Tim Holtz Embossing Folder - Rays
Glue Dots - Pop Up
Spellbinders Long Rectangles (which are not on my site yet, but yell if you want them there!)

A Different Type of Creativity

Over the last 6 weeks we have been working overtime in order to get my parents estate in shape and sell their home. It's been difficult to come to terms with, but practicality dictates its sale.

Although my Father never worked professionally as a jeweller, he graduated from Ryerson Institute of Technology (about a year behind the famous Bill Reid!) in jewellery design. He was always able to work in metal and wood and passed on that love to me. Some of his best advice was "measure twice, cut once" or "I cut it twice and it was still too short!" and about power tools: "It doesn't stop when you say ouch".
My Mother had a different type of creative streak, one that I lack. She could arrange flowers and "things" like no one I know. Give me some flowers to arrange, and well, you just don't want to be there.... Poor flowers. She created with her hands and heart and loved her gardens.

Their ultimate act of creation was this home overlooking Cowichan Bay on Vancouver Island. They designed it, my Dad built a lot of it. They could be an amazing team. They would kid that he was a do-it-yourself husband with a get-it-done wife. Sadly when she passed away, the get-it-done drive was gone and the spiral staircase in the silo remains unfinished, as have a number of other projects.
If you know of anyone looking for a home on the Westcoast, about 40 minutes from Victoria, there is one available.... Please contact Nick Brown

Pst! It needs a get-it-done person to love it!

All photos are current unless otherwise noted. If you are receiving this as an email update, please click on the title to view the slideshow on the blog.